Category Archives: webcomic

That’s what I’ve been up to. Using them all to do various things and animation. I discovered that I can import objects and poser scenes into anime studio pro 8. I’ve been using blender as well to model and I’m going to try to animate in it. I found out that using weld in Wings3D will help make blender objects import better into sculptris. And yeah.

I’ve always liked google sketch up but now that I have anime studio I am now able to build my set and animate in 2D with a 3D room and it’s much easier. I won’t be sharing the animation for a long time though. I’m no where near good enough yet but I am studying up for it all on my lonesome. I thought that it’s been a while since I’ve shared anything so I am here to share some sculptris sculptures and blender things I’ve been making.

And that’s what I have been up to and migraines are kind of holding me down a lot. Haven’t been to well but I’ll get better ^w^

Just to show I am actually doing something and not all talk because I realise for a week I think I’ve been saying how I’m drawing and then I show nothing so yeah, here’s a screen cap.

The city scape is a screentone so please don’t congratulate me on the city. I was playing with various tones, colouring them, toning them, adding shadows just to see the effects and to learn a bit more about stylizing buildings. Plus I want to keep this webcomic simple. The more simple the more likely I am to post regularly. I am considering posting to drunkduck.com because of what it offers now. I keep changing my mind lately but I will see what happens with the comic before I post elsewhere.

Just a few days ago I started up a new webcomic but this one is special because it’s open for co-authors. All artists are accepted. The only requirement is the be registered with smackjeeves.com to make it easier to message rather than email and so you can upload yourself. I toned all of it myself in photoshop. It was a lot of work and I am currently re-working the cover art.

The webcomic is called Lavender Project. I chose that name since most of the main characters have purple hair. It’s manga style and drawing and inked entirely in photoshop. No scanning in, just flat out work in photoshop. I’ve tried the whole scan and edit and it was so frustrating and tedious. That’s all for now. I will give out links later though. I am going to post it to drunkduck.com when I have enough pages because drunkduck.com offers a forum for your webcomic which I think is pretty neat.

So, for most of us, we only have photoshop to use for screentoning. And searching for them is pretty hard if you don’t know where to go. So this tip is a searching tip and an implementing tip.

First thing you can do is find a nice A4 sized screentone image, select all go to edit and selected “Define Pattern” and use the “Pattern Stamp tool”

Use gradient on one layer, tone on a new layer above the gradient and play with the layer blend mode to get gradient screentones.

Search deviant art for free use pre-made pattern tools. Download the PAT. file and install it yourself and enjoy flawless tones if the author gives the permission you need/are happy with, if not respect the creator and try find someone that offeres it for both free and commercial use.

To install PAT. file, go to, your C: drive, find adobe photoshop (whatever version you have, I am using PS7) pressets/Patterns/ then copy paste the PAT. file there, open photoshop, use and enjoy

Mix up the use of diffuse and the grain filter to make you own textures or tones.

In any case, searching deviant art first for free use tones that work in both PS and GIMP will give you more results than google. Also searching DA for screentoning tutorials will give you better results and turn out a lot more good useful tutorials because not many of these show up in the google search engine which has to do with google page rank which I really don’t want to get into right now, but honestly search DA FIRST for most art tutorials and it will turn out a heap of results. I actually go there for web coding tutorials before I google it. They just have bigger and better resources.

Basically just me drawing and planning pages for my friend and I’s webcomic. Mostly concept art at this stage. Hope something will be of use. It’s also going to feature some annotations etc so excuse my awful handwriting.

So I’ve been thinking about putting together a bit of concept art video’s together. So basically more than one artwork in one video, but that’s IF movie maker doesn’t crash as much as it has been doing lately.

I am however going to record an event file sometime in the week just to avoid using movie maker. Speaking of which I have two freeware programs to suggest OTHER THAN GIMP! I know GIMP can be quite good, but these two are a lot better suited to anime/manga and various cartoon art and just about anything you want to draw with a paint feel to it. Google search Project Dogwaffle. I am certain it is one word. Now becareful with downloading it because of all the ads, but it is very good, quite easy and if you really like it the upgrade is cheap but the free version stays free. The other is opencanvas 1.1 if you haven’t already heard of it which would be a bit odd by now but some people don’t know of it. It’s really awsome to watch your art replay in the even file later ^^ I love to watch my sketches replay but it’s an excellent way to spot where I went wrong.

I really loved project Dogwaffle but I have such a heavy arsenal of digital art programs already that I really didn’t need it but I went through a phase of trying to find a program that go that wonderfully soft watercolour look that I loved so much. In the end, I settled for Opencanvas, paint tool sai and eventually I learned how to watercolour in photoshop though it is very hard and time consuming. I have tried Corel painter, was not for me and thankfully I tested the trial before considering buying it because it is expensive! So my last bit of advice, download the trial before you buy! I bought Photoshop Elements 7 convinced it was the one I needed… how very wrong I was, I needed CS for the art I do but silly me took the advice of the sales man who doesn’t do digital painting and went by the pictures on the back. I did however find a painting technique in ps7 but what I am saying is, you shouldn’t have to adapt to the wrong program. Now I’ve learned my mistake, I will get the trials first. It’s saved me a lot of money.

Like one time I used the Trail of Manga Studio and omg after 2weeks into it, it used up soooo much ram it lagged and crashed and I was considering buying it after the first two weeks but the fact of the matter is, I’m not a big time comic artist and don’t have an industry standard working station and I was heartbroken after that because the tones were so beautiful and clean. Then I saw illuststudio and I tried the out of date english trial, saw the video’s on youtube and now I am saving up to buy it from akadot retail because it does the same thing without eating your pc, plus the coloured tones has me rather interested. I’ve found out opencanvas, the newer ones also have toning capabilities but illuststudio is a lot better for it since it’s made to create manga. My main reason is that it’s a japanese software specifically made to make manga so they’ve thought of EVERYTHING! And it’s so much cheaper to buy that Manga Studio. I don’t know how successful people think most comic’s artists are these days because most of us just make webcomic’s now in the hopes that someone will read and enjoy it.

Anyway I am getting side tracked now so to sum everything up, I will be posting a drawing video soon. Remember that just because my art turns out nice in a program doesn’t mean it will be the same for you because we all make art differently so, try before you buy. And have a great time drawing!